Seurat, Georges

Gray Weather, Grande Jatte

By his own description, Seurat set out to discipline the creation of
paintings through the systematic application of carefully calculated
formulas concerning color, composition, and line, which superseded those
works of the older generation of
Impressionists.
During the second half of
the 1880s he laid a foundation for a new, objective mission for the many
artists of his own generation who were drawn to his methods. Yet, for all
the rigor of intention and application of his theories, the outcome always
seemed to comprise a balance of systematic application and poetic
expression. This duality is no more apparent than in the vigorously
analytical yet subtly evocative painting
Gray Weather, Grande Jatte.

This picture shows a dull, overcast summer's day on the Grande Jatte,
devoid of the rowers, boaters, and fun seekers who populate the 1886
painting, which contains some forty figures. The idle boats are tied up to
the mooring posts driven into the shallows along the bank: a little sailboat
on the far left; two punts with pennants (perhaps from their rowing clubs)
fluttering from the mooring poles; and a steam-powered craft firmly
secured between two other poles, its dinghy tied up separately. As large as
the latter boat seems in this context, it is probably just a small pleasure
craft of the kind that moves gaily downriver in the 1886 painting, its guide
sail, which goes up over the metal arch on the stern, furled away.

The view across the gently flowing river to the suburb of Courbevoie
behind a concrete embankment is framed by the trees of the island. A path
worn on the grass moves strongly across the foreground, the boldness of
its diagonal somewhat dissipated as it weaves in and through the little
grove of trees on the left. The surface of the painting is densely, but not
evenly covered by a series of small brush strokes applied with great
deliberation. Directly placed pure colors alternate within each area of
definition: orange/green, blue/yelloy, and white/gray. A border of alternating
strokes of red and blue surrounds the entire canvas. The effect is at once
freshly panoramic and spatially flattened. As Robert Goldwater noted, the
diagonal placement of the tree trunks is balanced by the visual union of the
foliage to the surface of the picture plane, just as the strong angle of the
path is spatially thwarted by the even horizon of the bank beyond.

It is unusual for Seurat, who was very prudent about his titles, to have
given a descriptive title to this painting: "Gray Weather." At least three of
his harbor pictures bear the notation `Evening' along with the name of the
town in which they were painted, but never was he as specific in noting the
climatic nature of the moment as he was here. In this he was drawing close
to the intention --at least in title--of the Impressionists, particularly
Monet,
whose declared purpose was to capture specific climatic effects.
Given Seurat's relationship to the older generation of Impressionists and
his supposed dependency on their attitudes and style--a link that has been
seriously questioned in recent criticism--this is an idea worth testing. Is
this, indeed, a closely witnessed record of a temporal and climatic
condition in nature?

Felix Feneon, the critic and friend of Seurat, was among the first to note
that one of the grave dangers of Divisionist painting was that through its
increasing refinement of the applied, separate stroke that characterize its
practice, the interaction of colors tended to cancel one another out,
creating a somewhat dulled coloristic effect that may have been just the
opposite from the vibrancy intended. That is certainly not the case here,
where despite the intensity and degree of density of color strokes, the
relationship is so refined and delicately balanced that the overall muted
effect is as intended. This phenomenon proved a danger only for those
followers of Seurat who practiced his Divisionist techniques with less rigor
and strongmindedness. The subtlety and degree of forethought exercised
here argue for a completely calculated effect, an effect that is described by
the title. The strokes, for example, are not applied with an even denseness.
They vary markedly in their thickness and degree of color contrast from
one zone of the picture to another, just as the priming layer is not applied
evenly but, rather, with considerable forethought to align with the bands of
pattern within the picture: the lighter path, the water, and the sky are
painted directly on unprimed canvas, whereas a white underpainting shows
in spaces between the strokes in darker areas, to further enhance the
contrasted color strokes and create illusionist space. The final effect is
one of great formal lucidity and absoluteness, yet it has a definite sense of
the place and the atmosphere in which it was witnessed. The subjective
element is in enchanting accord with the objective calculations of its
realization; the "scientific" and the "poetic" duality is resolved on the
highest possible aesthetic and experimental plane.

The border is painted, allowing the picture to distance itself from its
original wooden frame, taking the shadow of the frame away from the
image with an aura of gentle vitality. The painted border has been
frequently discussed and its originality questioned on the assumption that
Seurat returned to this picture at some later date to adjust its surround, as
he was known to have done in other cases. However, careful observation
of the edge of the picture suggests that this is not the case. The image of
the landscape is carefully brought up to a fine edge of exposed, ungrounded
canvas well within the perimeter of the outer edge of the canvas. This dark
razor line is particularly evident in the highlight of the tree trunk to the
right, which plays so effectively in and out of the third dimension, in
contrast to the dark border just beyond--with the blue and red alterations
applied on the same exposed canvas with great method.